


Little Girls in Middle Earth: A Meta Fan Fanfiction Fiction

by worldstealers



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Dungeons and Dragons, Hawkins Indiana, Middle Earth, The Two Towers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 13:54:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19769584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worldstealers/pseuds/worldstealers
Summary: On their way home from a less than satisfactory game of Dungeons and Dragons with the boys, Max and Eleven find themselves... somewhere else. Somewhere not Hawkins. Somewhere where everything is bigger and grander. Somewhere where a pretty-faced elf has a bow and arrow trained on them. But this isn't your typical "young girl journeys to middle earth and meets Legolas" story. Because Max and Eleven are not your typical girls.This story was originally read as part of the World Stealers podcast. To listen to this and more original fanfiction, find us wherever you listen to podcasts!





	Little Girls in Middle Earth: A Meta Fan Fanfiction Fiction

“You can’t do that. I’m the only one with Darkvision.” Dustin huffed and slapped his meaty adolescent hands down on the table top. 

“Not true, Dwarves have darkvision too.” Lucas chimed in, puffing out his chest to prove a point against his feisty best friend. 

“But there’s no Dwarves in our party, so I’m the only one that can see the Hill Troll in there.” Dustin pointed at the crudely drawn cave outline on the paper map between the 6 of them. Lucas sat back and crossed his arms, staring off at the wood panelling and pretending not to care. 

“Ok, I don’t see the troll, but I throw my sword at it anyway.” Max was slumped over, her red wavy hair curtaining her face from the rest of the group. 

Dustin chuckled at her, “Good luck.” 

Max gently rolled a small blue die. Lucas, Will, Mike and Dustin leans forward enthusiastically to see the result. 

“Whoaaaaa!” said Will, “that’s 4 twenties in a row. There’s no way…” Slowly each kid turned to face Eleven, who was also sitting at the table, slumped and as uninterested as Max. 

“Eleven, you didn’t um, help? Did you?” asked Mike gently, knowing that his new-not-said-out-loud-but-definitely-because-they-kissed-that-one-time girlfriend, could get angry quick. 

“Help what?” Eleven asked genuinely. 

“What are you saying? That I can’t win at this without cheating?!” Max stood up from the table quickly, knocking over the little plastic figurine that represented her player in the cave drawing.

“No, I didn’t think that-” Mike said, putting up his hands knowing that while Max wouldn’t snap his neck with her mind, she still had a mean punch. 

“This game is stupid! Why would anyone play this when you can play an actual game at the arcade that’s just like it?” Max’s face was getting redder as she protested. Lucas, her not-boyfriend-even-though-they-kissed-once-because-she-said-so tried to reach out to calm keep her from leaving. 

“You can’t win, Max, we all play together as a team, so-” Lucas started, but was interrupted. 

“We can play this at the arcade?” asked Eleven, unphased by Max’s outburst. 

“Well, Gauntlet is kind of like this, but not really the same.” Mike reached over to prop up the knocked over figure.

There was a loud knock at the top of the basement stairway. 

“Kids! It’s time for the girls to go home now!” Will’s Mom’s voice skipped down the stairs. 

The tension didn’t leave the game table as Max yanked her denim jacket from the beaten up couch and stormed upstairs. Lucas ran after her. Eleven stood up and scanned the boys left behind, Dustin looking offended, Will shrugging, since he didn’t really understand teenage girls or his friend fascination with them either. She turned to Mike. 

“Ok, well, I’ll see you tomorrow.” She said. 

“Yea, of course definitely. I’ll just call you when I get up and we can ah, make plans, to ah, do stuff.” Mike spilled out. 

“Night.” said Eleven, then she turned briskly and left. 

\-------------------

The Indianna nights were getting particularly foggy lately, with distant sounds that could have been mistaken for horses, but were probably just branches rubbing together. They were noises that Max chose to ignore, even when they scared her, because after chasing down dimension hopping demons and dealing with her jerk of a brother, it was easier to deal with the mysterious darkness of the Indiana woods. 

Nothing in the woods ever bothered Eleven, because she could kill most things that lived there. And eat them. 

The two young girls walked confidently down the paved state road, not speaking, as they rarely did when they were alone together, and they both prefered it. 

The road that would eventually weave and turn, then fork off towards the other side of town, where Max lived, matched in the other directions by more Woods, where Eleven lived with Hopper, was completely empty. There were no speeding high schoolers or parents coming home from a date night. Just the empty wetness of a night with a full moon and clean asphalt. 

Eleven starred for a moment at a familiar dead tree, with a branch hanging precariously, ready to fall and stopped. 

Max turned to her, “What is it? Is something there?” She whispered, knowing to be serious about anything Eleven paid attention to. 

“I think there’s a shortcut this way. I… well, I used to live in…” 

“Yea, the woods. I know.” 

“Yea.” 

“Ok, well if there’s a quicker way, let’s go. Tonight is… kind of weird.”

Eleven nodded at this observation, although, a lot of night’s were weird in Hawkins. She led the way off the road, down into the irrigation ditch and uphill into the dark of thick trees and deep undergrowth. Max followed close behind. 

A mile or so in, Max started to think that Eleven was having another episode, or crazy moment, or whatever it was that made her brain do it’s thing. It wasn’t a shortcut if it took longer to get home, but maybe Eleven didn’t fully understand the term shortcut.

Also the rocks were getting bigger somehow, like giant boulders instead of rocks. And the forest was quiet, nothing save for their footsteps on the moist bed of leaves along the forest floor. Even the trees seem taller, extending into the night sky and almost drowning out the light from the moon that kept them from tripping over wayward branches. 

A quick rustle came from behind the two young women. They stood still. Then Eleven turned to face the noise and heard the long zipping noise, like something was being pulled taught. 

A pair of leather boots, then the bottom of a dress, then a man came out of the shadows, lead by the tip of an arrow pointed at the curly hair 12 year old staring at him. Seeing them in the light, he lowered his bow and gave his long blonde hair a ceremonious flip. 

“Women of your age shouldn’t be wandering this crossing without proper guard, as these hills are brimming with-”

“Who the heck are you? Robin Hood?” Max yelled out, charging forward to stand next to Eleven. 

“Robin, huh? I’m merely saying it’s a dangerous night for-”

“Move along, blondie.” Max finished, crossing her arms with a hmph. 

“I think they’ve made it clear, Legolas, that they have a standing as warriors if they choose.” Another man, bearded and in cloaks, stepped out of the woods, but with hands raised in surrender to the girls. 

“Yea, nothing about size that means they’re not fierce, Elf.” A gruffer voice came from behind, and Eleven whirled around again with a threatening look, only to see a kid, no a very short man with an incredible thick beard, but still in a dress like the others. 

“We should introduce ourselves, as we travel the same crossings at night, and to perhaps reveal if our purposes are as friends or foe.” The taller bearded man said, moving in front of the blonde and miffed Legolas. “I am Aragorn, ranger of the north and this is Legolas and Gimli. We’re headed to-”

Max started to laugh, cutting off Aragorn’s statement. She pointed to all three, and said “You’re from that book all the nerds like. You know, Eleven, the one Lucas and Mike won’t shut up about? The uh, Ring something.”

“Lord of the Rings.” Eleven said quietly, scanning the men surrounding them and thinking hard.

“Yea, but you’re not those guys, because they’re from a book. And we’re in Indiana, so what are you practicing for Halloween?” Max said, squinting her eyes to see the clues of their true identities a little more closely. 

“Oh no, not this again.” said the short gruff one, Gimli, dropping his hammer down on the soil and pointing at Legolas, “this is your fault, you know. The minute we leave a city, a young girl from another magical world that only Gandalf seems to comprehend interrupts our quest and swoons over you, the hairless prince.”

“I’m not a prince, merely from the woodland realm, and I can of course grow hair, so stout little-”

“I see we have another set of curious visitors.” A deep voice boomed from the trees, again accompanying a man who stepped out from them, old and regal in all white. “And I suspect they are confused and disoriented from their cross dimensional journey.”

“I’ll disorient you, you old craggy-”

“Yes. We are. And we need to go home.” Eleve spoke over the wizard, the two of them having a moment of recognition in their gazes. 

“And I imagine you will, young travellers. But what my companions say is true, the woods are not safe tonight. Shall you travel with us until you find your true path again?” As he finished, Gandalf set his staff down hard on the ground, causing a small ripple that bounced off everyone, and Max suddenly felt sleepy and serene. However, Eleven’s deposition did not change. Gandalf looked at her sideways for a moment, then smiled and walked back into the woods. 

Eleven followed Gandalf without a word, walking right between Legolas and Aragorn, who watched her leave bewildered. Max followed after her, shooting a dirty look to Legolas. 

“I suppose that this round of travellers don’t fancy you as much, Legolas.” Aragorn said.

“Yea, maybe this time someone will have a crush on me.” said Gimili, laughing, “although I’d have to break it to them that I’m 142 with 15 grandchildren.” The three men shrugged and followed their guests behind the white wizard. 

Ahead, Max caught up with Eleven and whispered, “You seem to know what’s going on, and well, weird stuff happens to you, so just tell me, are we safe or what?”

Eleven kept her eyes set on Gandalf’s gliding form ahead of them, “I don’t know.”

“Do you know if we can go home, though? I mean, are we really not in Indiana?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh,” said Max, “but the old man said we would go home, so, maybe he knows.” 

“Maybe.” 

Max looked annoyed at her friend, “Great.”

Later, after climbing a rocky hill to find a flat clearing overlooking the wooded valley, they set up camp against a mountainside. As the fire was set up, Max and Eleven were given Legolas’s tent to rest in, a gesture he made nobly, bowing as he presented it to them. Gimli scoffed in and sat on the log that would be his bed. 

As Aragorn began to roast squirrels over the fire, two more men wandered onto the camp with arms full of small tree limbs and twigs. 

“We’ve found some mushrooms on the far side of the ravine, and no, we didn’t eat them.” said a smaller man with a curly mop of hair. When they reached the fire, the young girls noticed that these new men were even shorter than Gimli, spritely like children, but yet still somehow men. 

“But we want to eat them, you know, as long as they’re not poisonous or…” The second tiny man trailed off looking at Max and Eleven. “Oh, dinner guests!” He dropped his pile of sticks and ran over to them, follow right behind by his enthusiastic partner. 

“Hello, I’m Pippin and this is Merry, and we’re from the Shire and we’re Hobbits.”

Max and Eleven both stared at the tiny men, who were at eye level as they were sitting down. 

“They must be in shock, Pippin. Remember how that one girl cried because she thought she was stuck here forever.”

“Well they always cry when they find out they can’t stay here and marry Legolas.”

“Excuse me! Marry that guy? Gross. I’m 12.” Max said. 

“Oh, well… yes I guess that could be a problem. Then who are you here trying to marry?” Asked Pippin.

“No one. We’re stuck.” said Eleven, who had just spent the last hour of their walk explaining to Max that sometimes she goes to different dimensions, and no, she can’t control it, and yes sometimes she has to fight stuff, and no, she’s never seen any aliens, and she doesn’t really know about this book, because she never reads very much, so she doesn’t know why they’re there or when they can get home. It was exhausting. But the wizard kept assuring her, both vocally and somehow with a sense of power, that they would in fact return to their world. Max wasn’t totally satisfied with any of Eleven’s answers, but figured if it gets her out of school on Monday, it can’t be that bad. 

The hobbits quickly lost interest in the new dinner guests and went off to test out their mushroom supply. 

Eventually everyone, but the new visitors grabbed a bit of squirrel and went back to the prep that comes with long term travel for the glory of your world and wellbeing of the realm. 

Max and Eleven retired to their loaned tent and gathered themselves underneath thick coats of fur, since the cold was finally getting through their jeans and polyester shirts. As Max began to lightly snore, Eleven started to truly focus. 

They were headed in the right direction through the woods, the path she used to run when she lived out there alone, hunting and surviving. But then, she remember a small hiccup in her mind, a whirring noise that sounded so similar to the fluorescent lights in the research facility she was raised in. Was there something in the woods, something left over from Hawkin’s lab that was seized or dismantled. Something that clicked on and created the ripple that connected her. The more she thought about it, the more she was able to narrow down on the moment the woods switched around them from normal, to the middle of wherever they were now. But even knowing the moment, she couldn’t narrow down why. 

Determined to stretch her own mind, Eleven closed her eyes and emptied. Pushed out every thought to focus on that thin fleeting line that ran between the worlds that she could push into. She reached over slowly for Max’s hand, feeling the tingle of that shift in the air that would take her through a wall between worlds. 

The front flap of the tent flew open and Aragorn squatted down close to them sleeping under the furs, and whispered, “Ladies, we must hurry. There’s a patrol. Come.” He scooped out of the tent quickly, holding open the flap for them to follow. Eleven shook Max awake, who started to yell in protest, but stopped when Eleven put a hand over her mouth. The exchanged a look that meant business, and Max stood up without a sound, the two leaving and following Aragorn to join the rest of the party up further up the mountain and onto a ledge up from the sight. They could see the embers of the fire flickering out down in the distance. 

There was a sound of horse hooves and grunts before they saw them. Four large men, or beasts, blue and black all over, trampled onto the campsite waving their torches around and yelling into the night. The hidden group was soundless and motion less, watching. 

“If they come up this way, won’t they find us?” Whispered Merry, shaken and frightened to the core. 

“Won’t they smell us?” asked Pippin, chattering in his bedtime pajamas, a beige jumpsuit that matched his friends.

“Shh now. We will see.” said Gandalf, who began running a hand over the end of his shaft. 

A blue and black beast held a torch closer and closer to the tent, calling out in anger for anyone there to come out and face them. Just as he reared back to burn it, a crack sounded, echoing across the ravine. All four orcs crumpled to ground, not making a single noise after their collapse and remaining motionless, some with their heads twisted too far in one direction. 

Max turned immediately to Eleven, whose nose was bleeding. 

“Oh thank god, I’m freezing.” said Max, who grabbed Eleven and headed back to camp. All six men hiding with them stood still, shocked and afraid. 

“That was not elf magic.” said Legolas finally, as he looked up at Gandalf for an answer.

“That was not magic, my friends. That was power.” Gandalf said quietly and with concern. 

By morning, the girls felt more rested and eager to return home. Eleven had outlined briefly and in few words that they would say goodbye to their new partners and then head back the way they came to find the point where she could hear the buzzing again, or at least find some quiet between the two of them so they could return home. 

However, when they crouched out of the tent they found all six men waiting patiently for them, lined up from tallest to shortest, the two hobbits twisting their hands together in excitement. 

“Quite a beautiful morning, isn’t it?” asked Gandalf. 

“Uh, yea I guess.” said Max looking at them all confused, and glancing around for the bodies of dead black and blue beast men, which must have been cleared away while they slept. This world was weird and she was starving for some cereal. 

“Allow me,” said Legolas, who stepped forward from the pack and cleared his throat, “we humbly ask you ladies, if you would join our quest to Mordor to vanquish the evil tyrant, Sarrouan. As you have such immense power and may be the only one who can conquer the forces of evil and return the ring to that in whence it came by-”

“No thanks.” said Eleven, who nodded to Max. They both turned, starting to head down the rocky road. 

“Wait!” yelled Gimli, stumbling after them, “I apologize for thinking you were like all those other useless girls. You are obviously both noble and experienced fighters in your realm and we are on the verge of losing-”

“Hey!” Max spun around to face the Dwarf eye to eye, “We said no thanks.” 

As the two strange girls began to walk away again, Legolas leaned forward as if to go after and continue trying to convince them, but Aragorn put a hand on his shoulder. 

“I think we better not.” He said calmly. “You are not as thick as the orcs. You are easier to snap.”

The party of travellers that would go on to save their world and crush the most powerful of evil forces to ever be known to Middle Earth, watched quickly and timidly as Max and Eleven returned to the woods. 

It took the better part of the day to find a small lake for which Eleven could submerge herself in, pulling Max in with her, reluctantly given the muck and algae floating through it. But when they entered together, holding hands and wading patiently on their backs until the right moment crossed into Eleven’s mind, it was a smooth transition. 

When Eleven opened her eyes they were still floating, but instead of looking up at the blue sky of Middle Earth, she saw ceiling tiles. They were both floating soundlessly in the new school indoor swimming pool, which had only just opened the summer before, and Eleven had thought it might be useful for this direct purpose, although she hoped to never have to use it again. 

They swam to the edge, alone in the wide building.

“Man, it’s only Sunday. Maybe we should’ve at least to Monday.” said Max, as she dripped onto the tile from soaking wet clothes. 

\---------------------

At the Palace Arcade in Hawkins, Indianna, there was a larger crown than usual running through the line of cabinet games and toy claw machines. Most of the kids were gathered around one cabinet in particular watching as it shook from being played and tapped aggressively. 

“Darnit, it’s gonna take forever to get a chance to play.” Dustin got on his tippy toes to look over the crowd of kid heads that were staring at the new game, Castlevania, that was plugged in just that morning. 

Lucas and Mike were munching on buttery popcorn and eyeing the machines that had been abandoned in lieu of the new cabinet. 

“We can always go back to your house and play D&D,” said Will hopefully, but then instantly regretted his thought and looked over at Max and Eleven, who were nearby playing Kung Fu Master. 

“Or we can play it when we stay over, you know, so we can include Max and Eleven.” Will said, resolved.

“Man, it’s just too bad that they don’t get how cool it is to be fighting and killing orcs and stuff.” said Lucas, shaking his head, but happy with the fact that Max wanted to hang out with him at all. 

“Yea, too bad.” They all agreed, then walked over to join their friends, who also happened to be girls, who they didn’t really get all the time, but were really pretty cool anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you liked the story and want to hear it dramatically read aloud, check out our podcast, World Stealers, on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you choose to listen!
> 
> https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/worldstealers


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